New York Yankees

Tonight's starting lineup against Freddy Garcia and the Orioles has been revealed. Yankees lineup at Orioles: Gardner 8 Cano 4 Hafner DH Overbay 3 Granderson 7 Adams 5 Ichiro 9 Brignac 6 Romine 2 Sabathia LHP — Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) May 20, 2013 The first things that come to mind: That is a very lefty-heavy lineup, with David Adams and Austin Romine being the only right-handed hitter in the lineup, as Garcia has a .261/.329/.430 line against left-handed batters throughout his career. Jayson Nix is finally not in the lineup after not having a day off since May 6, now if they could only give Lyle Overbay a day off too. Injury updates: Chris Stewart is going to need another couple of days before he can get back into the lineup and might actually need to report to Tampa. Hopefully Austin Romine can handle being the only catcher on the team for a few more days. According to Mark Teixeira's own twitter he has finally starting hitting after going 1-2 with a double and a walk. There was some initial confusion about whether he was in an extended spring training game or a simulated game. Regardless, this is the first time he's seen live pitching since March and it's a good sign in the right direction, however, I doubt he's back before June like he claims he will be. More From Pinstriped Bible Released Yankees: Where have you gone? Yankees vs. Orioles preview: Q&A with Mark Brown of Camden Chat Top 100 Yankees: #100 Johnny Lindell

Anyone have an idea why there are so many Holy Rollers in baseball? (I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to be a Holy Roller, if that’s how you float your boat.  I’m just curious as to why so many with the gift to play baseball at the highest level are that way…)

Brett Gardner CF Robinson Cano 2B Travis Hafner DH Lyle Overbay 1B Curtis Granderson LF David Adams 3B Ichiro Suzuki RF Reid Brignac SS Austin Romine C LHP CC Sabathia The post Wells sits in Baltimore appeared first on The LoHud Yankees Blog.

The Yankees have released seven players so far this season, four position players and three pitchers. The first three releases came during spring training as part of a roster culling. These three major league-caliber players have since latched onto other teams and continue their career. The minor leaguers were just released this past month and will attempt to continue their aspiring baseball careers. In spring training Juan Rivera was signed on to compete for the Yankees' right-handed outfield bat off the bench. When Mark Teixeira went down he ended up spending most of his time at first base and was looking at becoming the everyday first baseman. He hit .295/.317/.377 in 63 plate appearances, but was released when Lyle Overbay was brought in on short notice. He has since caught on with the Arizona Diamondbacks and has hit .324/.375/.405 for the Triple-A Reno Aces while playing first base and left field. Matt Diaz was the other veteran brought in to hit lefties off the bench, but he had a much less successful spring. He hit only .200/.250/.200 in 31 plate appearances and when the Yankees had more pressing issues following Curtis Granderson's injury he was released. Diaz signed with the Miami Marlins and hit .341/.385/.459 in 91 plate appearances for the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs before getting a call up to the majors. He is now only hitting .167/.211/.222 in 19 plate appearances with Miami. David Aardsma was in the second year of a two-year contract with the Yankees and was thought to be a lock for the team before spring training even started. He pitched to a 3.52 ERA in 7.2 innings, but was released by the Yankees at the beginning of April just before the start of the season because he was deemed expendable as a one-inning reliever. He signed with Miami and pitched 14 innings with a 2.57 ERA for their Triple-A affiliate before he was released just last week as his contract allowed him to request if he was not in the majors. It was announced les than an hour ago that he signed a minor league deal with the Mets. Sorry, buddy. The organization made several cuts to their Triple-A and Double-A rosters this past month and Gil Velazquez, Juan Cedeno, Cody Johnson, and Shaeffer Hall were the unlucky ones to go. Velazquez hit a putrid .173/.253/.173 in 85 plate appearances as Triple-A Scranton's primary shortstop. He has just re-signed with the Miami Marlins after spending the 2012 season with the organization. Juan Cedeno served as Scranton's LOOGY, pitching to a 0.82 ERA in 11 innings before being sent packing. He is now pitching for the Atlanta Braves' Triple-A Gwinnett team where he has a 6.00 ERA in only three innings. Draft bust Cody Johnson, drafted by the Braves in the first round of the 2006 draft, had been playing in the Yankees' system since 2011. He hit just .167/.297/.259 in 64 plate appearances in 2013 before he was released. He just signed with the York Revolution of the independent Atlantic League, probably ending his hopes of an MLB career. The lone homegrown prospect of the bunch is Shaeffer Hall, who was drafted in the 25th round of the 2009 draft. He was basically a Double-A innings-eater for two years before transitioning to the bullpen in 2013. He pitched to a 3.32 ERA in 19 innings before being released and hooking on with the Oakland Athletics organization. What have we learned from all of this? Maybe that if no one wants you, the Marlins sure do. More From Pinstriped Bible 2013 Yankees mock draft discussion Vidal Nuno skipped, David Adams sits - Are the Yankees not in the business of winning? Yankees Weekly Report Card: 5/12/13 - 5/18/13

The Yankees were hit hard by injuries and setbacks in Spring Training, forcing them to mine the scrap heap for stopgap solutions in the weeks and days leading up to Opening Day. One position that needed to be addressed since the end of last season was a right-handed hitting complement for their three-lefty outfield. Andruw Jones played his way out of New York in the second half and finding a replacement was near the top of the offseason agenda. Brian Cashman & Co. flirted with pretty much all available options during the winter, including free agent Scott Hairston and trade target Vernon Wells. The team eventually acquired Wells from the Angels, but not until the very end of camp, when injuries left the team without a left fielder and the lineup devoid of power. It wasn’t until the very end of the offseason that the Yankees imported Juan Rivera and Matt Diaz on minor league contracts to compete for Andruw’s role. Neither guy made the cut as New York instead opted to take Ben Francisco north after he was released by the Indians. Since youngsters like Melky Mesa, Thomas Neal, and Zoilo Almonte had little chance of making the veteran-loving Yankees, Francisco’s relative youth and defensive competence won him the job over Rivera and Diaz. So far this year, the 31-year-old Francisco has hit just .114/.220/.182 (12 wRC+) overall, including a measly 3-for-34 (16 wRC+) against left-handers. Three-for-34! A southpaw-heavy schedule allowed the Yankees to start Francisco in eight of 12 games at one point last month, and he responded with three singles in 25 at-bats. Worst of all, he batted either second or fifth in seven of those eight games. “He’s struggled,” said Joe Girardi to Mark Feinsand two weeks ago. “He’s had some good at-bats, and he’s struggled somewhat. You don’t want a guy to feel like every at-bat is the end of the world. Just go out and play and take care of what you can take care of, and that’s really all you can do. Go out and have good at-bats … Just go out and have good at-bats.” (Mike Stobe/Getty) Are 40 plate appearances against lefties and 50 plate appearances against all pitchers a big, meaningful sample? No, but players on the right-handed half of a platoon aren’t privy to big samples. They get 200, maybe 250 plate appearances in a given season. There’s no guarantee Francisco will get enough playing time to see his .125 BABIP (.080 vs. LHP) return to his career .287 (.267 vs. LHP) average. Girardi is loyal to his players and has given Francisco every opportunity to bust out of this slump so far, but he has shown zero signs of snapping out of it. “Just in terms of your fan comments section, just say I’m holding onto him to piss everybody off,” said Brian Cashman to reporters over the weekend before going on to acknowledge the team always looks for upgrades and will pounce if a better right-handed hitting outfielder becomes available. Cashman is a great quote and he has an 80 troll tool, but he’s no idiot. He knows Francisco and the lack of a quality right-handed bat — the Yankees are hitting .228/.299/.359 (75 wRC+) against lefties this year — is a major issue right now. None of the team’s righty bats in Triple-A are distinguishing themselves right now — Mesa is striking out in over 40% of his plate appearances while Neal and Zoilo own .739 and .623 OPSes against lefties, respectively — so any solution will likely have to come from outside the organization. The trade market should start to heat up with June on the horizon, but Francisco’s time has come. We’ve seen enough to know a replacement is needed regardless of who is on the DL and when they’re scheduled to be activated. Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blogBen Francisco and numbered days

Mark Teixeira was in New York for one day last week, helping to escort Prince Harry around town before returning to continue working out in Tampa, Fla. But while he was in the city, Teixeira said that he is still optimistic that he’ll be playing big league games for the Yankees before the month of May is over. Teixeira announced on Monday via Twitter that he has stepped into a batter’s box against live pitching – it sounds like it happened in Extended Spring Training, and Joe Girardi will hopefully be able to provide the details later today. In any event, it seems to be another step in the right direction. Felt good to get my first AB's since March. 1-2 with a double and a walk, I'll take it. #Yankees in first place, I'll take that too!— Mark Teixeira (@teixeiramark25) May 20, 2013

Greetings from the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, where the Yankees and Orioles will open a three-game series tonight at Camden Yards. The weather is getting a little bit warmer and there’s a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, which I must say syncs perfectly with most of the experiences I’ve had here in Charm City over the years. After being washed out yesterday against the Mariners in the Bronx, CC Sabathia will go through the paces of his routine once more and prepare to face the Orioles’ lineup. He’ll be opposed by a familiar face in veteran Freddy Garcia, and the Yankees should have no trouble absorbing the scouting report on Garcia, knowing full well that he’ll throw the kitchen sink of junk at them tonight in hopes of putting Baltimore in position to win. Here are the pitching probables for the series against the Orioles: Monday, May 20, 7:05 PM EDT, Oriole Park at Camden Yards CC Sabathia, LHP (4-3, 3.19 ERA) vs. Freddy Garcia, RHP (0-2, 5.51) Tuesday, May 21, 7:05 PM EDT, Oriole Park at Camden Yards Phil Hughes, RHP (2-3, 5.88 ERA) vs. Miguel Gonzalez, RHP (2-2, 4.58 ERA) Wednesday, May 22, 7:05 PM EDT, Oriole Park at Camden Yards Hiroki Kuroda, RHP (6-2, 1.99 ERA) vs. Jason Hammel, RHP (5-2, 5.72 ERA)

On Sunday, we highlighted the large drop in the Yankees’ team on-base percentage. One such player that’s also seen a hit to his OBP is Brett Gardner. To date, RUN BMG possesses an OBP twenty points less than his career norm (.332 vs. 352). And the less Gardner is on base, the less he can use his speed. We briefly touched on this earlier in the season when small sample sizes roamed freely and noted that Gardner was swinging more liberally. This is, perhaps not surprisingly, causing Brett Gardner to strike out more often. RUN BMG owns a career K-rate of approximately 17%; this year he is striking out nearly 22% of the time. A quick dig in the Pitch F/X numerical dirt reveals something fairly substantial: Brett Gardner is getting owned by fastballs. In Brett Gardner’s major league plate appearances between 2008 and 2012, he saw a fastball 46% of the time, swung at the pitch 34% of the time and whiffed only 2.2% of the time. Fast forward to today…Brett Gardner has been given the heater nearly 51% of the time, has swung at the pitch 48% of the time and has whiffed 7% of the time. Here’s what’s really interesting — Gardner is also struggling with another pitch to a much higher degree than ever before in his career: the changeup. Between 2008 and 2012, he whiffed on the changeup 7.8% of the time. This year? He’s swinging through the pitch 20% of the time. While small sample sizes still exist (it’s still only May), that’s a fairly dramatic increase across the board and it’s entirely possible that pitchers, seeing a new weakness in Gardner, are exploiting it.

Tonight CC Sabathia (4-3, 3.19)  vs Freddy Garcia (0-2, 5.51) Tomorrow Phil Hughes (2-3, 5.88) vs Miguel Gonzalez (2-2, 4.58) Wednesday night Hiroki Kuroda (6-2, 1.99) vs Jason Hammel (5-2, 5.72) The Yankees and the Orioles have only played three times this season so far with the Yanks taking two out of three in the Bronx last month. Included in that series was the complete game shutout by Kuroda on April 14.

For the first time since injuring his wrist, Mark Teixeira got some at-bats today. I assume they happened in extended spring training. Teixeira tweeted that he went 1-for-2 with a double and a walk. The post Teixeira gets some at-bats appeared first on The LoHud Yankees Blog.